___________A blog by a guy who is happy to be a pastor of people, pursuer of beauty, and proclaimer of God’s truth as best he understands it____________

“To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.” (1 Peter 1:1-2 ESV)

When we are in exile, we want to change where we are. God wants to change who we are.

An exile’s solution to a problem is to be somewhere else. Home. This week I am a climate exile. Friday night about 11:00 at church, my car wouldn’t start. Jennifer and I spent about 45 minutes with cables trying to jump start it. I was so cold. This was a bitterly cold and nasty week. From my perspective, I am a climate exile. I am supposed to live somewhere warm.

Talk to climate exiles and their focus is on geography; where they would rather be—the wonderfulness of a different climate; the punishment of this one this time of year.

Exiles think the solution is a change of location. If your marriage feels like exile or your job feels like exile or your sick body feels like exile, the solution is a different marriage, different job, different body. We want to change where we are.

Then we read elect exiles foreknown by God. Peter doesn’t encourage them to get out of Galatia or Cappadocia and to come back to Rome. He doesn’t encourage them to flee their sufferings and problems. Why? God’s first priority is not changing where we are but who we are.

I think about trials that I have walked through in my life. A few of them made me want to run away. When you are in distress, anywhere seems better than where you are. We see the answer here in this passage: God’s first priority is changing us within; changing who we are; changing how we see ourselves and the world around us. He changes us by putting us in Cappadocia, the last place we want to be. There, in our exile, real growth and change can take place.

Might you be living in Cappadocia? Are you looking to book a ticket out ASAP? Hear the old apostle’s wise words and embrace the change within. Can you dare to pray, God, I want out and I want gone, but more than that, I want what you want. Use this exile and this trial to change me into the person you would have me be. Don’t you think God will answer that prayer? And maybe the reason he has you in Galatia is to get you to the point of surrender and trust and faith?

If there was ever an exile from home, it was Jesus, who left his heavenly homeland to live here among us and to learn obedience by the things he suffered. “Let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39) May his example help us realize that God is behind of all of it and through all of it is working all things together for good.

Other than the book of Romans, the next clearest teaching on justification is the book of Galatians. In a summary statement, Paul writes, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1 ESV)

Some teachers had come to Galatia and were saying that salvation is by faith AND by obeying the law. Grace + works = salvation. Paul called them out as false teachers and said their gospel was no gospel at all.

Paul wrote the letter deeply concerned that the Galatian Christians would revert back to their pre-gospel attempts to save themselves by obeying the Law. He asked a series of probing questions:

“Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?” (Galatians 3:2)

“Having begun by the Spirit, are you not being perfected by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3)

“You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?” (Galatians 5:7)

Why was Paul so concerned? They believed in Jesus, right? Yes. They weren’t in danger of subtracting from Jesus but adding to him. If you believe in Jesus for your justification but then try to obey the Law or man’s rules in order to self-justify, that is another gospel; not one that saves. Was Jesus’ death enough? Or do we need to add a little something?

This is commonly known as legalism. Legalism is requiring human righteousness either before or after justification; obeying some legal code as a condition to be justified or in order to remain so. Both are adding human merit to salvation by grace. Jesus came to set us free from both the requirement to obey the Law to be saved and the requirement to obey the Law to stay saved. The early church dealt with this in Acts 15 with Gentile Christians entering the church and the Jewish Christians already there freaking out because their lifestyle wasn’t shaped at all by Jewish religious customs. The Apostles and the Holy Spirit said that our forefathers couldn’t obey this Law and salvation comes apart from it. Indeed, legalism is the antithesis of salvation by grace. Grace means freedom in a way the law never could.

“Run, John, and work, the law commands,

Yet finds me neither feet nor hands;

But sweeter news the gospel brings,

It bids me fly and lends me wings.”

(John Berridge)

We like it. Yet how many Christians somehow are not trusting in their justification but in their sanctification? That’s legalism—adding to grace man’s human effort. I know that our church has many people from backgrounds like mine where there was a strange mixture of gospel grace and man-made rules. We didn’t have to obey God’s law to be saved but after we are saved, there was an unwritten list of extra-biblical rules that you’d just better conform to. These weren’t God’s laws, they were man-made rules. Rules without grace. Rules without gospel. Rules enslave us. The gospel sets us free. It bids us fly and lends us wings.

Pastor, you can’t say that! People will hear this as freedom to sin! Paul anticipated this response in Romans 6 and wrote in verses 1-2, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”

Below is a recent photo from Liberia. The man in the photo thought he had Ebola but was just declared free from Ebola contamination. Imagine the sense of relief! Does he immediately go drink from a contaminated fountain? Does he carelessly handle contaminated materials? How does a guy live in Liberia who has just been declared free from Ebola?

Sin is like Ebola. Sin is deadly. Being declared by God uncontaminated by sin (justification) doesn’t embolden us to go back to sin. Now we want to stay away from it—not to be saved—but out of joy and gratitude at being declared forever uncontaminated by it.

These are sins Jesus died for. Sins Jesus bore our guilt for. You say, “The stuff before I was saved, not so much. But more recently, yeah. I can’t quite shake it.” Justification is shaking it. Jesus didn’t die for the sins we commit before we are saved; he died for all our sins. Justification is God’s declaration of righteousness over our entire lives; our entire resume of sin. All of it.

This is true freedom. Freedom from guilt. Freedom from sin. It’s like the guy walking out of the contamination unit—freedom to live again. For the analogy to actually work, while he was in there, let’s say he did have Ebola. But the King of Liberia, who had been given an antidote to Ebola, says, “Hook us up. Transfuse his Ebola blood into me and my perfect blood into him.” Now how does he walk out? Now how does he feel about the king? How does he use his freedom which came to him at such an incredible price?

“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” (Romans 8:29)

Way back before Jesus’ incarnation and even before creation, God purposed to conform all who believed in Jesus into the very likeness of Jesus. This doesn’t mean we physically look like him, but spiritually, our attitudes, our motives, our values, our loves, our priorities, every little dimension of who we are, God wants to root out the effects of sin and replace it with what healthy looks like. Jesus is the picture of health.

But how do you do that? Quarantine? Spiritual antibiotics? Spiritual chemotherapy? God’s plan is way more radical than that. This transformation requires an actual new birth. A whole new start. A complete do-over. The theological word for this is regeneration.

“Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’” (John 3:3)

“He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” (Titus 3:5)

Let’s focus on the Titus verse a little. The first part describes the mercy of God in justifying us according to his mercy—not our works; not our doing—but God’s doing on our behalf. Notice that the last clause explains the first. “He saved us…by the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.” What Jesus calls born again, Paul calls regeneration.

God’s solution? A complete reboot. A whole new start. By the washing of regeneration. Regeneration is God creating a whole new nature in us. A new life. A new heart. A new power and desire to live to please God. The old nature delights in sin and cannot please God. The new nature delights in righteous living and wants very much to please God. This means for the Christian, sin is no longer our master and we no longer have to live under its bondage. That is great news!

Counted. The word is a legal financial word that means “to credit; to credit an account.” You probably do this all the time. If you bank online, to pay bills you will likely transfer money from your savings into your checking—enough to cover the bill.

In imputation, God legally transferred the guilt of our unrighteousness to Jesus on the cross and, when we believe, he transfers Jesus’ righteousness to our eternal moral account.

“That is why his faith was ‘counted to him as righteousness.’ But the words ‘it was counted to him’ were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” (Romans 4:22-25)

“Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.” (Romans 5:18)

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

This last verse says it so brilliantly simple. God made him sin. Who? Jesus. The holy One. Made him sin? How? On the cross God legally imputed to him our moral guilt. Was he guilty? No. But in God’s eyes as he hung there? Yes. Jesus became our substitute. Jesus became guilty. Jesus became what he was not by the imputing, or transferring of God.

Taking our guilt away isn’t enough to save us. If this was all that God did we still are not righteous. We just aren’t guilty. We’re just back to zero. But to stand before God we must be fully righteous. It’s like asking what it takes to get into Harvard. Do you just have to get rid of the F‘s on your record? No. To get into Harvard you need a whole lot of A‘s.

That is the second part of the verse. “So that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” This is the second imputation. In the first, he takes our guilt and imputes it to Jesus’ account. This is why as Jesus hung on the cross, the sky grew black and Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) What was the answer to Jesus’ crying question? Because from the perspective of God the Father, God the Son was morally unrighteous as he hung there. God treated him like we deserve to be treated. Jesus felt Vesuvius wrath.

But this is only half of imputation. Not only can guilt be imputed, but so can righteousness. “His faith is counted as righteousness.” (Romans 4:5) When I put my hope and personal faith in Jesus, God imputes the full obedience of Jesus to the Law over to my moral account. Now, from God’s perspective, though ungodly, I am seen eternally as fully righteous. The result of this double imputation is that Jesus was in a category of sin he didn’t deserve and we are in a category of righteousness we don’t deserve.

So how does something so completely unfair done by God not make him liable for wrongdoing? Or in terms of Romans 3, how can God be both just and justifier?

Let’s go back to Jesus and the cross. The cross is a statement of value both on the greatness of God’s holy justice and the greatness of our debt to God. Only the perfect and infinitely valuable life of the Son of God could sufficiently pay that price. Jesus’ voluntary substitutionary death allows God to fully uphold his justice while making a way for sinners to be declared what they are not—righteous. The Law is fulfilled in Christ’s perfect life. God’s justice is satisfied in Jesus’ death. God’s glory is magnified as God mercifully declares the sinner righteous while simultaneously maintaining his own glorious holiness. Brilliant!

“Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” (Galatians 2:16 ESV)

“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:21-24)

What is Justification?

Galatians 2 makes it clear, the righteousness we need to stand before God can’t come through our attempts to obey the law. Self-righteousness will not save us. The righteousness that can save us is apart from the law. It comes from God in a different way. In Romans 3:22, it comes “through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.”

Both passages use the same word to describe how eternal right standing before God can come to the sinner. Justification. It’s a long word but don’t be scared. It literally means, to pronounce or declare something righteous. The Law can’t declare us righteous; it can only condemn us. But God can. Let’s look at the verses.

It is “by his grace”

Grace means gift. Grace means getting something I don’t deserve. The justifying declaration of God for the sinner is completely out of his kindness and love and in no way based on the sinner deserving it. If I deserve it, I earned it. If not, it is grace.

It is “through faith in Jesus Christ”

Faith is the means or instrument through which this righteous declaration comes. This faith is not itself a work but rather is the open hand receiving. Notice faith’s object is not faith but Jesus. This is shorthand for the gospel about Jesus. His person as God and man. His work dying bearing our guilt on the cross and his resurrection.

It is available “to all who believe”

Justification is not exclusive. It is not just for Jews or just Gentiles but any who believe. Remember this is a three-part series, so we will unpack this further, but to summarize, here is the Westminster Catechism,

“Justification is an act of God’s free grace unto sinners, in which he pardons all their sins, accepts and accounts their persons righteous in his sight; not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but only for the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ, by God imputed to them, and received by faith alone.”

The result of God’s justification of the sinner is that the sinner, while still a sinner, is treated eternally by God as a morally perfect human being.

This sounds too wonderful to be true, doesn’t it? Most religions say, try more. Work harder. Do this. Do that. Christianity says the complete opposite. Stop trying! Stop trusting how good you are! The impulse to self-justify by my own actions itself is human pride. Jesus has done the work for us. He has lived a perfectly righteous life and his very righteousness is made available to all who believe in him.

So God makes me righteous? No. Here is a key point. In justification, God doesn’t make us righteous. We still fall short of the glory of God all the time and every day. The miracle here is that God declares us righteous anyway.

Here we are fighting an old Sunday school definition of justification: just as if I’d never sinned. Sounds nice but it robs justification of its true glory. It is not just as if I’d never sinned. It is in spite of all my sin. In spite of all my rebellion. In spite of all my doing the wrong thing and failure to do the right and loving thing. In spite of the massive pile of guilt even the most moral person has created. Despite my sin against him, he justifies anyway. Justification is a moment—a declaration of eternal righteousness for anyone who places their faith in Jesus Christ.

“Turning away our view from our own works, it bids us look only to the mercy of God and the perfection of Christ. The order of justification which it sets before us is this: first, God of his mere gratuitous goodness is pleased to embrace the sinner, in whom he sees nothing that can move him to mercy but wretchedness, because he sees him altogether naked and destitute of good works. He, therefore, seeks the cause of kindness in himself, that thus he may affect the sinner by a sense of his goodness, and induce him, in distrust of his own works, to cast himself entirely upon his mercy for salvation. This is the meaning of faith by which the sinner comes into the possession of salvation, when, according to the doctrine of the Gospel, he perceives that he is reconciled by God; when, by the intercession of Christ, he obtains the pardon of his sins, and is justified; and, though renewed by the Spirit of God, considers that, instead of leaning on his own works, he must look solely to the righteousness which is treasured up for him in Christ.” (John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion)

This places the sinner in an eternal category he doesn’t deserve to be in. All his guilt is taken away. God makes an eternal commitment to view him as a morally perfect human being. You protest, “But I’m not morally perfect!” We know you’re not. The friends you grew up with know you’re not. Your family knows you’re not. If you put your faith in Jesus, there’s only one person who doesn’t know that and that’s God. Better said, of his own grace, he freely and lovingly chooses not to know it, not to remember it, not to ever hold it against you. He has declared you not simply morally neutral, but positively and eternally righteous. That is justification.

This is the answer to the either damning or delightful reality check at death. The sudden-pain-in-your-chest, slump-to-the-ground, here-you-go moment. That millisecond on the other side of death where the sudden view is of the majesty of Almighty God, the beauty of heaven, the terror of hell, and the question that determines our eternal destiny. Perfectly righteous or not. Heaven or not. Eternal life or not.

“Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice.” (Philippians 1:15-18)

Paul was an apostle; the risen Christ appeared to him personally and commissioned him to this. You would think this put him above the petty rivalries and jealousies in ministry. Not at all. He writes this letter from prison. He relates here that his imprisonment has inspired some to preach Christ boldly. Great.

But there was another group. This other group resented Paul’s influence and popularity. They chafed at his authority. Why? They wanted it. So with Paul stuck in prison, this was their chance to strut their stuff. Draw people’s admiration. Draw people to their bandwagon. They preached Christ, but did so with innuendo about Paul. A little sniping. A little snarky. They were ambitious but it was self-ambition. Paul’s response shows what gospel ambition looks like. What does it matter?As long as Christ is preached. Here we see the selflessness of the apostle. The same selflessness as John the Baptist who, when the crowds left him to follow Jesus, famously uttered, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30) When our ambition is Jesus and the gospel, we can rejoice whenever those are accomplished; even when it’s someone else’s ministry, even when that person’s motives are questionable. Who are we promoting, after all? Ourselves or a crucified Savior?

“For I have no one like [Timothy], who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 2:20-21)

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” (Philippians 2:3)

These verses get at the issue. Ambition is not the problem. We should be ambitious in gospel ministry. We should take risks for Christ. We should ambitiously serve in the church and the community. Ambition is the not the problem. Self-ambition is. Who are we being ambitious for? Pride easily masks itself as spiritual hustle and bustle. Look what I am doing! I must be a spiritual giant. This is slippery and hard to determine because it gets right down to the heart level. Why do I do what I do? Is it for me? Who am I trying to make look great? To ask our church, are we simply trying to make a name for ourselves or be big-shots in Northwest Indiana? That is selfish ambition and pride. Gospel ambition might look the same on the outside but it has an entirely different ambition on the inside.

“Ambition which centers on the glory of God and the welfare of the church is a mighty force for good.” (J. Oswald Sanders, Spiritual Leadership, p. 2)

Here are great indicators of gospel ambition. Will I serve in obscure positions? Am I willing to serve categories of people who don’t advance my name-building? Is my giving of money or time dependent on acknowledgment? How do I react when ministry requirements are inconvenient? These and many others reveal the true motives behind my service.

“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way.” (Philippians 3:12-15)

Look at the words Paul uses, Run. Press. Strain. Verse 13 is particularly rigorous. “But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead…”

Forgetting all that lies behind

Isn’t this always the danger? It’s like Lot’s wife, looking back. Living in the past. Thinking our Sodom experience was the best. Looking back to some spiritual high point or accomplishment. If you are running, is it wise to run forward and not look behind. Great runners always look forward. All their training and preparation is for this one race; this one moment. The athletes that don’t have this focus, you never hear of them. They don’t win. They don’t make the team, they don’t go the Olympics. They end up preaching sermons in Northwest Indiana on the weekends.

Today’s athletes will discipline themselves and push themselves for maximum performance. Sometimes they start training as children. I remember years ago I had the chance to visit Lake Placid, New York, the site of the 1980 Winter Olympics. It still has an Olympic training facility. When we visited, the ice rink was filled with very young girls, twirling and jumping who were six, seven, eight years old. They were from all over the country, living there full-time. They were training every day hoping and convinced that they were the next American to win skating gold.

Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 9:25, if athletes will give that effort for a prize that passes away, what kind of service for Christ should we offer for an eternal reward?

Straining forward to what lies ahead

The picture here is vivid. A runner giving all his effort. Eyes focused. Head not moving. Body in motion. Not backwards.

What is Paul reaching for? He says it this way, at the end of his life, in 2 Timothy 4:7-8—“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day.”

Pastor Steve, would you just say what you want to say and quit beating around the biblical bush? OK. Here’s what I want to say. We just birthed triplet campuses. Caring for them has meant sending hundreds of our best people to other campuses. Most of these people were extremely involved here; the kind who do the heavy lifting. These people are easy to spot; they almost have spiritual beads of sweat on the foreheads. Leaders. Servants. Many of them the welcoming type. Hospitable. When there was a need they heard about, they were willing to step in. Faithful. They are taking their energy and helping us reach Gary, Southwest Lake County, and the cities of Hobart and Portage for Christ. We still have lots of people who attend here and we still are blessed with many wonderful servants at this campus, just not as many as we used to.

What is needed now here at Crown Point? More than ever before, we need runners. We need to forget what lies behind and press toward what lies ahead. We need everyone here engaged in quality effort and ministry for Jesus.

I had lunch last week with two brand new families to our church. Both just moved to the area. Both were heavily involved in previous churches. I didn’t tell them, “We’re so awesome we don’t need you.” I said the opposite, “You are coming at a time of tremendous need.” One of the blessings of a multisite church is that it creates so many more opportunities to serve. A single site church has single site needs. Now with four campuses, we have four times the needs and opportunities.

I know we have many seasoned Christians who used to serve with vibrancy but not so much anymore. Can I lovingly say, forgetting what lies behind, press forward to what lies ahead? I once heard Pastor David Jeremiah say, “You can know the vibrancy of your faith by how old your illustrations are.” Today is a new day and a new opportunity.

We need forget about what lies behind. Sometimes people are paralyzed in serving Christ by something in the past. A hurt. A disappointment in a church leader. Forget what lies behind. Maybe you simply rest on an accomplishment of the past or past service or you live vicariously through your adult children who serve for Christ. Forget what lies behind. Today is a new day to strain forward. God is opening doors to us all over Northwest Indiana; it calls for us to give our best effort for Jesus. Press on. Strain. As missionary David Livingstone said, “I’ll go anywhere as long as it’s forward.”

Realize that we are not planting campuses, we are planting people. The church is people. As people follow God’s leading and serve faithfully in these other campuses, it means God’s people here need to do so as well.

Next week we will talk about what that looks like. Let me remind you of the urgency of this.

Northwest Indiana has half a million people who do not attend any church of any kind. They have no visible faith expression in anything, much less Jesus. Jesus’ final words are guiding us to make disciples. How do we honor him in doing that? Like Paul, to say in my heart, my one thing is “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14)